History of Malayalam Cinema

Early Era

The first Malayalam film, titled Vigathakumaran was released in 1928. It was a silent film ,produced and directed by a businessman, J. C. Daniel who had no prior film experience. The second film Marthanda Varma based on a novel by C. V. Raman Pillai, was produced in 1933. But it was never released due to some legal disputes.

Balan released in 1938 was the first talkie in Malayalam. Its screenplay and songs were written by Muthukulam Raghavan Pillai and directed by S Nottani. It was produced at Chennai (then Madras) in the neighbouring state of Tamilnadu. Malayalam films continued to be made almost exclusively by Tamil producers till 1947 when the first major film studio, Udaya was established in Kerala.

Malayalam Cinema has always taken its themes from very relevant social issues and has been intervened with the fields of literature, drama and politics from the very beginning. Jeevithanauka(1951) was a musical drama which spoke about the ego clashes in a joint family, the norm of the day. This movie was widely accepted and popular and can be mentioned as the first "Super Hit" seen by Malayalam Cinema. This success of the movie turned out to be sweet and sour at the same time. Although this success accelerated malayalam movie making, films that were produced after Jeevithanouka took up after this "success formula", hampering true creativity for a very long time. This was noted to be the period of giants ( Prem Nazir and Sathyan ) in Malayalam Film Industry. In 1954, Neelakkuyil captured national interest by winning the President's silver medal. Scripted by the well-known Malayalam novelist Uroob and directed by P. Bhaskaran and Ramu Kariat, it is often considered as the first authentic Malayali film. Another notable production was Newspaper Boy (1955) which had elements of Italian neorealism.This film is noteworthy as the hard work of a group of amateur college students and spoke of the story of a printing press employee and his family hit by extreme poverty. Chemmeen (1965), directed by Ramu Kariat and based on a story by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai went on to become immensely popular and won the national award. It had music by Salil Chowdhury, songs by Manna Dey and editing by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The first colour film in Malayalam was Kandam Becha Coat.